In 1953, as has been previously explained, one of our objectives was to extend the dig in the area Z.T. Not only did we expect to make further discoveries there, but we intended to climb back on to the Ziggurrat Terrace and to re-examine the ninth century temples discovered by Layard, particularly that of Ninurta and the ‘Small Temple.’ It was also desired to locate some of the other religious buildings mentioned in the texts of Aššur-naṣir-pal.

It was found, however, that the task of clearing the ground on the top of the terrace was beyond the resources of the Expedition, for the quantity of late debris which would have had to be removed from the south and east sides of the Ziggurrat was too great an obstacle to overcome in the short time at our disposal. Moreover the great expense of money which would have been involved in this operation was beyond our means; it also became obvious as we excavated the eastern side of Z.T. that this particular area had been repeatedly plundered, and that the chances of making any significant discoveries were poor. Nevertheless it is not impossible that further work in this disturbed ground might yet produce some important information, and we could hardly affirm with any confidence that such a task is not worth attempting.

During the 1953 season at Nimrud a considerable quantity of late Assyrian pottery was discovered in a well-dated context. It was thought that the immediate publication of this material, although in a brief and preliminary form, would be of value in providing dating criteria for other Near Eastern sites.

Of particular interest is one room (T.W. 5 3, room 19) in the private dwellings excavated along the eastern wall of the akropolis near the north-east corner of the tall. This room which had apparently served as a store-room contained pottery on the floor in a deposit several feet thick. In one corner of it was a cache of dated tablets which spanned the years 666 B.C.–c. 626 B.C.; none was earlier than the reign of Aššur-bani-pal. That this storeroom had been burned was indicated by carboni2ed grain and sesame seed in the large storage jars, heavy burning of the tablets, and traces of burning throughout the debris to a height of 1·50 metres above the floor, and also by the hard-baked mud-plaster on the walls. The room appeared to have been a kind of surdab, three low and narrow entrances (in the west, north and south walls) had been the means of access, though not all of them were in use at one and the same time. It seems quite reasonable to assume that the burning occurred not later than 612 B.C. As most of the pottery must still have been in use when the place was burnt, we may reckon on a maximum error of eighteen years (629 B.C.–612 B.C.), for the dating of the complete specimens. Many of the types were, of course, already known in the Sargonid period as will be noted in the discussion below.

A delicate vessel, not uncommon in levels of the seventh century B.C. is the small thrown goblet (e.g. ND.1839, Plate XLI No. 1), generally some 8–10 cm. in height, with a fairly high-shouldered belly, and a wide neck of almost cylindrical form, splaying slightly out towards the everted lip. The neck accounts for between one third and one half of the total height of the vessels. The bases of these goblets show that they were commonly pinched off a clay matrix, though a fragment of fine drab ware (T.W. 53, Room 18) found in the lowest sub-level of 4, which probably belonged to a pot of this kind, exhibits a small ring-foot thrown from excess clay at the base. This pot must have been inverted and re-centred on the wheel—no easy task with this sort of fabric; its date is probably a few decades before Assur-bani-pal.

A particularly interesting feature of some of the more delicate goblets is the pattern of rows of fingertip indentations round the outside of the belly of the pot. The original reason for the development of this ornament, with its particular spacing, was clearly an inescapable practical fact. For a pinched-off pot has to be caught in the potter's free hand as it is finally separated from the clay matrix; and the makers of these goblets used to catch them with their fingertips, which indented the fine, slimy body of which they were made. The potters then added further indentations to make a pattern. The original set of finger impressions can be identified on complete pots by fitting them to one's own finger-grip.

In the excavations at Nimrud in 1952 and 1953 were found several pieces, varying in size, of inscribed clay prisms bearing historical texts of Sargon II. Most of these pieces have proved to be parts of two ‘upright’ prisms, and have been actually joined together. Three other fragments, to be mentioned below, do not belong to these assemblages. The partly-preserved inscriptions thus obtained are duplicate, and as such the two copies have to some extent the valuable quality of restoring each other's text where damaged or missing. It is a misfortune, however, that by singular chance much the same columns of the prisms remain in both copies, so that stretches of the text exist in two examples with only minor variants, while other long passages are lost from both; it is a further misfortune that much of the missing part was evidently the more interesting for the modern student, comprising the beginning and end of the inscription, of which little now remains. The better preserved portions are concerned mostly with the campaigns of Sargon, and therefore do not present very much that is new in matter, though in arrangement they have the peculiar feature of seeming to disregard chronology, as will be seen hereafter, substituting perhaps a general geographical order.

A number of cuneiform tablets containing chronological lists of kings of Babylonia and Assyria from various periods have been published during the last seventy-five years. None, however, of these King Lists deals with the Seleucid period, which is now covered for the first time.

The present edition of the King List is intended to be a preliminary one. Once it is subjected to the detailed criticism of the Greek historians and after the one minor philological difficulty that remains is solved by our Assyriological colleagues, we expect to republish it in a more definitive form in a larger work that we are planning on the fragments of Hellenistic history that are embedded in a considerable body of unpublished astronomical texts of the Seleucid and Arsacid periods. On that occasion, we also expect to reconsider in detail the chronological data contained in the date formulas of economic and literary cuneiform texts as well as in astronomical tablets of various types, both published and unpublished. Rather than wait until every scrap of Babylonian, let alone classical, evidence has been sifted, we have thought that the interests of scholarship would best be served by the present prompt publication, particularly since the authors of this article are primarily Assyriologists and their knowledge of Hellenistic history is therefore not very profound.